Dems back independent for Jolly seat

Two months after narrowly losing a hotly-contested special election in Florida’s 13th District, national Democrats are backing an independent candidate in his attempt to deny GOP Rep. David Jolly a full term in Congress.

Colonel Ed Jany today announced a campaign to challenge Jolly as an independent — with the backing of the Democratic Party — on the day of the filing deadline.

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Jany is running as an independent because of a 2011 state law that requires candidates for all offices to be registered with the party they are running under 365 days prior to qualifying; the campaign said he registered as a Democrat “several months” ago. Jany, who has served in the military for 33 years, according to a biography sent by his campaign, announced his candidacy after the party’s top recruits declined to run.

“Democrats are proud to support Colonel Jany and confident he will run an aggressive, successful campaign,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel in a statement. “Congressman David Jolly’s reckless Republican Congress is repelling Americans like Colonel Ed Jany who are fed up with the Republican agenda that hurts women, seniors and the middle class instead of focusing on solving challenges that matter most to Pinellas residents.”

Jolly defeated former state CFO Alex Sink in the March special election to fill the rest of late Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young’s term in the St. Petersburg area by just two percentage points. Democrats had hoped for a rematch, but Sink last month declined to run in the general election.

In a conference call with reporters, Jany indicated that he would continue Sink’s “fix it, don’t repeal it” message on Obamacare. “I think there are good aspects and bad aspects,” he said. “But let’s talk about it. Let’s not cut the dialogue.”

Jany, a first-generation immigrant from Brazil, said he became a citizen in 1973 and grew up speaking perfect Spanish, Portuguese and English — without any hints of an accent. He said he switched party affiliations after growing frustrated with the Republican Party.

“The last straw was the government shutdown,” Jany said.

Although he has never run for office before, Jany said he was in no way going into this with a “cavalier” attitude and decided to run on his own, not because he was approached by the DCCC.

“This is as critical as any mission I’ve had in the military,” he said.

“This is a humongous recruitment fail for Nancy Pelosi and the DCCC,” said Katie Prill, spokeswoman for the NRCC. “After losing all of their top recruits thanks to President Obama’s toxic agenda, they are now stuck with a candidate who couldn’t even run as a Democrat because he didn’t register in time. This is truly embarrassing for Washington Democrats.”

It’s also unclear if Democratic outside groups will back Jany as they did with Sink. A spokesman for House Majority PAC, the super PAC that spent nearly $1 million backing Sink in March, didn’t outright say if the outside group would continue to pour money into the district.

“FL-13 is a winnable seat, and it is certainly on our radar,” said Matt Thornton.